Part IV
Working with Grammar
The need for the explicit teaching of grammar in the composition classroom is a vexed point of discussion. We expend a huge amount of energy just helping students to read accurately and in detail, and then on helping them represent their responses to that reading coherently in writing. To add another level to which we must pay attention thus seems nothing but burdensome, when using language correctly, in its written form, is something that most teachers do instinctively. To make it explicit, and then communicate it effectively to the students therefore potentially more adds frustration and difficulty to the process of teaching writing. And yet, a lack of control at the level of the sentence in student papers often distracts and annoys us to the point that we cannot even cross over into the area of the students’ ideas. Importantly, treating grammar not as something you “feel,” but rather, as something that is teachable and learnable, makes for a happier relationship between sentence-level work and meaning for both student and instructor.
This section of the Instructor’s Resource Manual is therefore a discussion of why we should care about grammar, what teaching grammar is for, both for students and for teachers, and then, some explicit strategies for working with grammar that make it relevant for the students’ writing.
One of the primary reasons that we consider working with grammar to be an integral part of The New Humanities Reader pedagogy is because a lack of control of sentence-level error in student writing obscures conceptual work. That is, while we may say that conceptual work is primary, sentence-level error often makes it impossible to even gain access to students’ analytical and connective thinking about the readings and their own project. In this sense, then, dealing with sentence-level error is one of the most immediate issues that we need to deal with in the classroom. Crucially, we do not want a student’s paper to fail for sentence-level error if the ideas are of passing quality, but at the same time we want to make students accountable not only for what they say, but how they say it. Getting sentence-level execution right not only helps them to pass their composition class, it also has real world implications—we do not want any person who is reading one of our students’ work to be distracted from what the student has to say by the appearance of incompetence at the level of the sentence. And making grammar a part of classroom practice, in the context of paper-writing rather than as an artificial addendum to the work of paper writing, means less one-on-one coaching for grammar, which allows us to spend our office time working with student on developing their ideas.
In this section, we will lay out ways of thinking about grammar and sentence-level error which can make dealing with these issues a less tedious and frustrating part of teaching writing. We would like to suggest that grammar teaching becomes less of a chore when we focus on the relationship that exists between grammar and meaning. In student papers we often see a breakdown in sentence structure when the student is grappling with a complex idea. If we can then show the student that this relationship between structure and meaning exists, and that by trying to express their idea deliberately, giving each component part its own unit of meaning, then we have taken a step to making grammar relevant to the student’s writing, and thus helping them to internalize what they did, why they did it, and, importantly, how they can do it again. Our job is to show the students the choices that they can make when trying to an express ideas, and how to make good ones, just like we can.
We can think of the term grammar as encompassing two distinct aspects of written language. One is the structural aspect—how to make choices about the way a writer expresses an idea such that what is on the page actually reflects what they want to say. The other aspect is the mechanical one, which concerns rules such as subject-verb agreement, verb tense, pronoun use, punctuation etc. It is often a lack of control in the latter area that frustrates us most as teachers, although it is error on the structural level which most often impedes meaning. Our goal in teaching grammar, then, is to demystify the “how” of overcoming grammar errors in the area of mechanics, and to help students to understand how structure relates to meaning, and how they can control how their ideas come across by controlling how they structure their sentences.
Demystifying the mechanics of using language correctly means focusing on the rules behind fixing this kind of error. Making the rules explicit, rather than treating punctuation and grammar as something that students have to learn how to “feel” like we did, means that we can then ask them to go through their own papers and fix their own errors. Working with the mechanics of grammar then can become a proof-reading issue, rather than one that relates to meaning. Proof-reading is a presentation issue, and we should be able to control it by making the rules behind it explicit, once the student knows what to look for in their own writing.
Demystifying the reasons behind structural errors means making explicit the fact that the choices students make about what kind of clause, or sentence that they use to express an idea has an effect on what meaning their reader will take from it. Making explicit the consequences of certain choices of sentence structure—choosing to use sentences which have dependencies between their parts, choosing to write all in independent clauses, etc.—and discussing with students the way we express the relationships between ideas in writing using punctuation, dependent structures and other stylistic techniques, gives them an inventory of devices to choose from, by which their written work can more closely resemble what they meant when they were thinking the idea through.
And finally, demystifying all sentence-level error starts with finding a common grammar vocabulary in a class. Showing students what a particular kind of error looks like, giving it a specific name and then showing them the underlying problem and how to fix it (either by applying a rule, or making an informed choice about the way they want to express their ideas) gives them a set of tools which they should be able to work with independently, by the end of their composition class. We can also help students to care about grammar by showing how sentence-level errors will affect their grade—either for reasons of presentation, or because they obscure the meaning that lies underneath the syntax.
It is usually the case that grammar and structure errors do not occur in isolation. That is, while a sentence-level error is occasionally the result of a single instance of carelessness, or of a momentary disconnect between what a student wants to say and the way she is able to say it in the moment, most sentence-level errors are repeated throughout a student’s paper. That is, a student with a problem with fused sentences on the first page of his paper will often have the same issue on pages 3 and 5, just as a student’s pronoun agreement issues will recur many times in the course of a paper. For this reason, rather than dealing with sentence-level errors as incidents which each must be addressed individually. Rather, we work with “patterns of error.”
The usefulness of thinking about patterns of error is that, by noticing a pattern, we can then set the student up to recognize the issue as a fact about their own writing, and to take steps to resolve the error in a more fundamental way. Very few papers run the gamut of potential grammar mistakes, even when it seems like it at first glance. Most students have a handful of errors, such as sentence fragments, subject-verb agreement, confusion over their/there/they’re, etc., which they make again and again. This is what we call a pattern of error. Some patterns are severe (the student makes the same mistake several times in almost every paragraph) and some are mild (the error occurs once or twice in each paper.) Some errors, such as comma placement, are relatively superficial (with the rare “eats, [sic] shoots and leaves” exception); some are “fatal” (as in “he eat leaves”).
Furthermore, telling a student that they have made 2 grammar errors 12 times in their paper is much more encouraging than telling a student that they have made 24 grammar errors. When a student gains an awareness of the kind of error she is likely to make, she can work towards preempting all occurrences of the error, whereas working with each error in isolation requires the student to make the connection from each instance to the kind—which may or may not happen. Patterns of error therefore make our lives easier, as well as giving the students a chance to fix their grammar independently, and come close to the demonstration of linguistic competence in their writing.
What Can We Use to Work with Grammar?
Despite the fact that formal grammar is not uniformly taught in high school, our students do not come to the classroom without any resources to draw on in working on sentence-level error. As well as addressing grammar from our own skills with written language, we can also draw on the knowledge students already have.
Students have knowledge of grammar and structure from these three major sources. We can use these in different ways.
Students Who Are Native Speakers of English
Our students who are native speakers of English can hear and speak their language correctly. The issue that we are dealing with in their writing is thus not due to a lack of competence with language in general. Rather, grammar errors in the writing of native speakers tend to arise from the fact that they have not learn to analyze, and thence connect what they do to speak “correctly” and coherently, to their writing. Exercises such as reading their own writing aloud to a peer exactly as it is written on the page (i.e. reading what they have written, rather than what they intended to write) helps them to see how to reflect their verbal competence in their writing. These exercises work particularly well when looking at mechanical errors, because agreement problems, vague pronouns, etc. pop out very clearly to the student’s own ears. The reading aloud method is less effective when working with punctuation and error which has no spoken reflex (e.g., s-endings with or without apostrophes, the difference between there and their, etc.). Many problems seem to stem precisely from the fact that students can’t hear the difference between two forms. Asking students to think about the context in which they use these words, and what they actually mean, is essential to making the rule explicit. This is something that their native speaker knowledge should help them with.
Finally, using native speaker intuitions to help with structural problems can be difficult because they are not used to reading punctuation as a reflex of how they would say a sentence. These issues require different strategies, but we can still ask students to express their ideas verbally and then write them down, to make their thought process clearer (people feel required to make writing more complicated, especially when they’re writing in their native language).
Students Who Have Learnt English as a Second Language
Our students who are not native speakers of English have an advantage over our native speaker students in some sense, because they are used to thinking about English as being rule-governed. We can thus work with them on the rules they have learnt already, and help to demystify written English by adding to their inventory. Difficulties for these students arise more frequently in working with areas of grammar which are not rule-governed, such as the use of prepositions in English, and the choice between various kinds of sentence in order to best express the meaning that they want to convey.
Experience with Formal Grammar from Learning Foreign Languages
Finally, even native speakers often have been exposed to formal grammar rules when learning languages other than English. Once again, we can use this experience to help students become comfortable with working with rules, and using them to address their patterns of error.
Working on structural issues is more challenging than working on mechanical ones, though working with mechanical errors is arguable more tedious, requiring us to make explicit the rules that we take for granted. But by working on both mechanical and structural errors in the context of the students’ papers, we can help our students take ownership not only of the ideas that they wish to convey in a paper, but the ways in which they want to convey them. We can provide them with ways to make good choices about these ways, and with an inventory of structures in order to show the relationships between their ideas as clearly as possible, and an inventory of strategies that allow them to demonstrate their competence on paper, and help the reader past their presentation, to the ideas themselves.
Presentation Issues to Focus On
We have included a checklist below of the most common sources of error in essays written in response to The New Humanities Reader. These issues range from mechanical to structural to presentational.
• MLA Citation Guidelines
• Plagiarism. Boundaries: Your Words and the Writer’s
• Sentence Integrity When Using a Quote
• Subject-Verb Agreement
• Verb Tense Shift
• Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
• Vague Pronoun Reference
• Sentence Fragments
• Run-on or Fused Sentences
• Comma Splices
• Other Comma Usage
• Apostrophe to Show Possession
The exercises below have been devised by teachers in their efforts to make grammar a part of their classroom practice, particularly in dealing with the areas above.
Grammar in Context: Extended Quotation Exercise
By Barclay Barrios
I have always had tremendous success with this exercise. It helps students to learn to work with quotations and to make connections. It also allows students to work together to locate these connections, reinforces proofreading skills, and provides students an extra opportunity to locate more connections.
I usually try to do this exercise during our discussion of the third essay. Placing it before the third paper can be very useful for students. I start by locating 5–7 quotations from the third essay that definitely connect in some way to our previous essays. I type these quotations up and bring them to class. Students work in groups of three or four on these quotations. The goal is to produce a paragraph that connects the quotation they are given to a quotation from one of the previous essays, and to explain that connection. At times, I have directed students to begin by paraphrasing the given quote, relate it briefly to the author’s argument as a whole, locate a connection from another author that connects, and then explain that connection. I make it very clear that paragraphs will be collected and typed for the class to see, so they should be formal and as error-free as possible.
The next class, I return with the paragraphs typed up. There are always a host of errors in the hand-written paragraphs, and I bring them to class as-is. The class as a whole reads the first group’s paragraph, looking for errors. Then, as a class, we identify these errors and correct them. This proved an opportunity to discuss various errors as well as to discuss hard error versus sentences that are just awkward and to devise strategies for dealing with both. Then, when we have corrected the paragraph, I ask the group that composed it to explain the connection they located. Then I check to see if the class sees the connection and if they have any questions for the group that located that connection. We repeat this process for every group’s paragraph.
At the end of class, I tell the students that they are to choose one of the original quotations and write their own individual paragraph, connecting to the author that particular group did not choose. Students see how connections can be made between the third author and either of the previous essays. I then collect these paragraphs the next day to see how individual students are working with quotations and connections.
I try to devote at least half a class to the first day of this exercise where the groups compose the paragraphs. Going over the paragraph takes a whole class day (between finding errors and discussing the connections).
‘Grammar’ in the Readings
By Heather Robinson
We can also use the readings in The New Humanities Reader to help students see the relationship between structure and meaning, or how punctuation and sentence structure can be used to express an author’s intended meaning and position more effectively. Take a passage with interesting sentence structure, punctuation, etc. from one of the essays and write it on the board. Ask your students to find all the independent ideas in the passage—the points where the author is making a claim, or presenting an idea. I ask the students to tell me what to underline, so we can all see the main ideas in the paragraph. We then look at all the other material in the passage on the board, and discuss how it is related to these main ideas conceptually, and how the author shows these relationships. I draw arrows or lines between all the ideas that are connected, and circle the punctuation or words that indicate these relationships. This can lead to a fruitful discussion of how dependent clauses are useful, how we can use semicolons effectively, etc. I then ask students to look at a passage from their own paper, and to mark it up in the same way. I can ask them to add in the punctuation or the “function” words which will give me the clues I need to understand how all the different parts of the sentence fit together.
Apart from making the relationship between structure and meaning explicit in the readings, this exercise also helps a students see herself as another writer, with the same tools available to her as are available to Jon Krakauer, Susan Faludi, and Ellen Dissanayake, for example.
Close Reading for Grammar Awareness
By Kathryn Steele
Close reading can be a great place to point out the relationship between structure and meaning. Use an individual sentence from the reading—preferably one which needs some unpacking—to help start a discussion about how the structure of the sentence helps (or impedes) meaning:
We may then move beyond efforts to explain the explosive presence of Jews in post-Enlightenment intellectual life as a result of their “primitive” encounter with “civility” (Cudihy 1974) to explore how the Jewish belief that “Creation as the (active) speech or writing of God posits first of all that the Universe is essentially intelligible” (Faur 1986:7) provided a pathway from Torah to a restless, unifying modern impulse in the natural and social sciences. (Boyarin)
What is the subject of this sentence? What’s the verb? The object? What is Boyarin’s point? Is the difficulty in working out the relationships between the many embedded ideas warranted?
Grammar and Meaning: Working with Grammar in the Context of Student Papers
Working with Grammar in Class
In every class, the students seem to develop a pool of common errors. By the third paper, it should be clear what these errors are. Just as lectures on the assigned texts are less enabling than activities that require the students themselves to make meaning, so the discussion of grammar, clarity, organization, and related issues should occur in the context of workshops that require revisions and then some discussion of the results. (Not every revision is an improvement, of course.) These sorts of activities are most effective if you can talk about the mistake in the context of the students’ own writing. Examples from grammar handbooks tend to be too simple to be really useful.
Many teachers scan the rough drafts, pulling sentences that contain common grammar mistakes. It helps to take one or two from every paper so that everyone sees that they have a problem and no one feels singled out. Try to avoid errors that are ESL related, such as articles and preposition choices, since this embarrasses the student in question and is less helpful for the other students. Put all of these sentences together into a worksheet and hand them out in class. You might introduce this exercise by going over some examples of the two or three most frequent or serious problems. Then have the students correct the sentences either alone or in groups. At the end of the period, you can go over the “answers” in class.
Syntax Exercise (“Sentence Snarls”)
By Carol Denise Bork
This would be a good exercise for part of the class on the day after peer review on the fourth paper. On the day the rough draft is due, students do a typical peer-review exercise that asks them to engage with the other writers’ ideas, identify passages that summarize too much, etc. This exercise, as a follow-up during the next class session, emphasizes the progression from developing ideas to assign for homework: Read sections 8, 9, and 10 (“Sentence Fragments,” “Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers,” and “Parallel Constructions” in the Reference Guide to Grammar and Usage (pages 49–61).
Prepare: Photocopies of several paragraphs from different student papers. 4 or 5 paragraphs are probably enough.
As a class: Start with a “sentence snarl” identified by the teacher. Have one student read the sentence out loud. Make sure that this sample sentence is one that has an interesting idea that is obscured in a “sentence snarl.” Ask students to identify the idea in the sentence, and make sure to show that you (the teacher) find the idea interesting.
Working in pairs: Ask students to work with partners to identify the “sentence snarl” that makes the idea confusing and to rewrite the sentence. Students should use the handbook, referring to the pages they read for homework. Each group writes the revised sentences on the board.
As a class: Discuss the various revisions, considering which work the best and why. Point out that there are several good revision possibilities, rather than one “right” answer.
Working in small groups: Ask each group to choose one of the paragraphs on the handout and find and revise other “sentence snarls.”
Notes:
• This work should only take 20 to 30 minutes, leaving time for other activities in the same class.
• This exercise could easily be adapted for use in the computer classroom.
Grammar by Analogy
By Kathy Lubey
[Editor’s Note: This exercise helps students see how to show the relationship between the ideas in a sentence by making choices about structure and punctuation.]
1. The semicolon.
In order to explain the special connective qualities of the semicolon, I contrast it with the comma and the period. I do so by drawing an analogy between the two main clauses connected by the semicolon and, yes, a romantic relationship. In the ideal romantic relationship, two people are intimately connected so that their meanings and lives are enhanced by one another in the same way that the two main clauses of a sentence joined by a semicolon are enhanced by one another. This contrasts with the comma, which suggests that the two main clauses cannot exist without one another, which is a fallacy (or an unhealthy view of what a romantic relationship is); it also contrasts with the period, which suggests there is complete separation between main clauses and their ideas. I call the semicolon the vehicle through which two complete entities can “make love” to one another. They love this, and they never forget it. We then generate simple examples of this relationship (“The dog’s bowl was empty; I filled it with food”) and more complex ones based on the readings or on two simple sentences I find in a student’s rough draft.
2. The dependent clause.
I do this lesson by first having students generate a simple dependent/main clause sentence: for example, “Because I was hungry, I had a snack.” We then discuss how the dependent clause is mobile: it makes sense both before and after the main clause. I use this as an opportunity to explain to them how conscious decisions can be made regarding sentence structure and order. Which information should come first—the part about hunger, or the part about the snack? Next, I try to draw an analogy, as with the semicolon, that makes more comprehensible to them the relationship between main and dependent clauses. I usually do so by asking, if we were in a science class, which part of the sentence would be considered a “host” and which a “parasite.” They immediately are able to identify the dependent clause as the thing that feeds off the main clause so that it can remain in existence. Like a parasite, it cannot live without something to provide it sustenance. And, like a host, the main clause must contain the most vital information that gives the entire sentence life. The students usually can then understand that the main clause should contain the “blood” of the sentence—the most central information.
We then generate a more complex sentence using main and dependent clauses by referring to the reading being discussed. “Because she feels the devaluation of the feminine is a violation of basic rights, Martha Nussbaum proposes that a set of minimum conditions be adopted that would guarantee the potential for equality for every individual.” We then review (a) why certain information is contained in the main clause versus the dependent clause, (b) which should come first, based on what’s being said before and after, and (c) how the information in the dependent clause feeds off of the information in the main clause. This can also work very well, and more concretely, by using student writing for the example—perhaps on how to unite two simple sentences into a multi-claused complex sentence.
Above all, in both examples, I try to emphasize that generating clauses or connecting sentences/clauses with punctuation should be a conscious decision based on how the writer wants to convey a certain relationship among ideas. Does s/he want them to make love, or does s/he want them to live autonomously? What’s the appropriate organization, given the ideas being worked out?
Working with Patterns of Error
Patterns of Error
By Ann Dean
I give a pattern of error quiz sometime after the middle of the term. Each student must identify his or her own patterns of error and explain how to find these errors when proofreading and how to correct them. This makes the students, rather than me, responsible for understanding and finding the errors they make.
How it works:
• When you are grading papers, keep a sheet where you note errors that each student makes more than once. This is sort of a pain but it’s not actually that time-consuming.
• When giving folders back after midterm folder review, have them spend time looking at the errors you have marked in their papers (I underline but do not correct errors, so they have to figure out what they are and how to correct them). They make a list of them. You can also do this for homework. Tell them there will be a quiz on this information. The quiz asks them to give:
a) their three most common errors
b) an example of each error
c) a correction of the example
d) a description of the proofreading technique that helps them find that error
• The grading is a little creative, but they don’t seem do notice. Give them three points for a), three for b), etc. If they don’t know the difference between proofreading and revision, and write about explaining quotations, etc., they fail. If they never make errors in their finished papers, they probably have errors that they found in earlier drafts that they can write about (and that kind of student usually doesn’t complain anyway).
• If a student fails, he or she comes to my office and takes it again and again until he or she passes.
Patterns of Color
By Kathryn Steele and Kay Lynch
Asking students to use their beloved highlighters to mark up their own sentences can be a way to get them to see patterns in the context of the whole project, rather than in the context of errors. Highlighting activities can include marking the ends of sentences to look at sentence variation, marking verbs to call attention to “to be” verbs or the use of the passive voice, or marking subjects and verbs in different colors to see if there are fragments or problems with agreement. Or students can be asked to determine and highlight a grammatical or verbal pattern of their own choosing.
Color-coding Grammar Issues
By Heather Robinson
When I’m grading, especially the first few papers, I like to use highlighters to indicate the kinds of errors that students are making. I use three different colors—one for punctuation errors, one for errors concerning sentence structure, verb tense, pronoun-noun agreement, etc., and one for issues to do with word choice. I tell students that it’s their goal by the end of the semester to have a paper that is completely color-free. I find this strategy useful firstly because it has visual impact—the students’ eyes are drawn to the colorful markings on their paper, and they are more likely to pay attention to the meaning of these markings. Secondly, it lets them see what areas of grammar/language use they have more-or-less under control, and which they need to focus on. And thirdly, it identifies the kind of error that they are making, while asking them to identify the particular issue that they are having, leading them to make corrections by themselves (or at least to ask me questions about what I am seeing in their papers).
Self Evaluation
By Kathryn Steele and Danielle Bobker
Once students have a body of work (three or four final
drafts), they can spend some time evaluating
their own progress. This is an especially good thing to do before heading into
the homestretch of papers
5 and 6.
• Have students write down the patterns of error noted on drafts and final papers. They should use their grammar book to look up the errors they still aren’t catching, and should be encouraged to make note of what they have learned as well.
• As a homework assignment, ask students to find 2–4 of the patterns of error noted in final or marginal comments. On a separate sheet of paper, have them copy down the comment, then an example from their paper, and a corrected or revised sentence.
• Encourage students to make special note of the grammar problems they have encountered and resolved when they present the project of their final papers to the class.
• Have students keep an ongoing journal of their patterns of error and their efforts to improve them throughout the semester.
Helping Students Correct Their Patterns of Error (Creating a Grammar
Worksheet)
By Michelle Brazier
At some point in the semester, you will have to address certain recurring grammar errors, for example, subject-verb agreement, pronoun agreement, vague pronouns, run-ons, fragments, etc. The best tool for improving students’ grammar is a handout compiled from their own papers. I begin “gathering” grammar errors on the Final Draft of the first paper. I collect them according to error, thus creating a master copy of the handout for myself. By the second assignment I have more than enough errors to give them a two-page “Grammar Worksheet” which I create by taking the errors out of their categories and mixing them up. I tell the class that these are all grammar errors they have collectively made on their first two assignments. I give them a list of the errors represented, but do not tell them which sentences contain which errors. Each sentence has at least one error I have listed. It takes them a long time to correct them, and they find it difficult to pinpoint what is wrong, but they always know that something isn’t right. This exercise will take a full class period, but it is worth it. They see that the errors are common in all their papers and they laugh a bit in spite of themselves. More importantly, they see these grammar errors, perhaps for the first time, as unnecessary mistakes that they might be able to catch on their own in the future.
Group Work on Patterns of Error
By Barbara Hamilton
1. In your end comments on final draft #1, identify the most common patterns of error (or choose one to start with). If a student has no discernible pattern of error, choose a stylistic issue for that person to work on. Remind students to bring the Reference Guide for Grammar and Usage on the day you return Paper #1. Group students according to their main difficulty and have each group work together on the appropriate section in the Reference Guide. Circulate and assist groups while they work.
2. Have another short session on the same error with the same groups on the day before their next final draft is due. Have them check each other’s papers for that group’s “issue.” I would separate this exercise from your regular peer revision so that the revision groups maintain a focus on larger structural or thematic concerns, rather than devolving into proofreading sessions.
Repeat as necessary for the first part of the semester until they get in the habit of referring to the handbook for sentence level questions.
Working With ESL Students
Translation Errors
By Loriann Fell
1) I have ESL students keep a list of the types of errors they make, then next to each write how that grammar issue is handled in their first language. Often this can help them “know what to look for.” I have also asked them as the semester goes on to track their progress at fixing errors. For example, they might often have sentence fragments that are really dependent clauses, so they check sentences that start with while, because, therefore, etc.
2) If ESL students get tangled sentences I ask them to identify who (subject) is doing what (verb) to who or what (object). If they can keep that in order, then I ask them to decide what the extra information (clauses) applies to and add those right next to that part of the sentence. This sentence building-deconstructing is sometimes useful. I also stress that they should try to keep sentences as simple as possible—just the basic elements—and short. That way they are less likely to wander off track and impede meaning.
3) A good suggestion from Barclay worked for me over the summer. After circling errors on the first paper and identifying them, I’ll mark the number and type of errors on a page and ask the student to find and fix them, then meet with me. For example: “Find four sentence fragments.” I pick one or two errors that the student makes repeatedly.
4) I have found that ESL students benefit from reading each other’s papers aloud (or just a portion) which I also do with them in office hours. They rarely make the same mistakes in speech that they make when they write and will recognize right away if something “sounds wrong.”
What About Style?
Voice, Style, Tone
By Jen Schubert
Students can discuss differences of voice and style between and within essays—their own and those in The New Humanities Reader. How does Annie Dillard’s tone change from paragraph to paragraph or sentence to sentence in “The Wreck of Time”? How does Annie Dillard’s voice differ from Stephen J. Gould’s? Using excerpts from their own work, students can draw examples of and describe different voices in their own work. The Prentice Hall Reference Guide (section 42c on “Levels of Formality”) provides some terms for these discussions.
Voice, Style, Argument
By Kathryn Steele
I ask students to rewrite paragraphs from the reading in a different style. Initially I provide an example; then I have students rewrite another section from the current reading. Finally we talk about how the meaning—and in fact the strength of the argument—changes when the style changes, even in small ways.
Perhaps, too, it is time to question our glorification of debate as the best, if not the only, means of inquiry. The debate format leads us to regard those doing different kinds of research as belonging to warring camps. There is something very appealing about conceptualizing differing approaches in this way, because the dichotomies appeal to our sense of how knowledge should be organized.
Well, what’s wrong with that?
What’s wrong is that it obscures aspects of disparate work that overlap and can enlighten each other.
What’s wrong is that it obscures the complexity of research. Fitting ideas into a particular camp requires you to oversimplify them. (Tannen)
(Revision) It is time to question the glorification of debate as the best, if not the only, means of inquiry. The debate format classifies different kinds of research as belonging to warring camps. These dichotomies appeal to traditional understandings of how knowledge should be organized. This is wrong because it obscures aspects of disparate work that overlap and can enlighten each other, obscures the complexity of research, and oversimplifies ideas.
Patterns of Valor
By Steven Syrek
Along with patterns of error, we might indicate productive patterns in students’ final drafts, including their use of helpful syntactical formulas. For instance, a student who always qualifies transition sentences with “X; however, Y” can be made aware of the repetition. The instructor might point out the nuanced thinking this formulation allows and also invite the student to experiment with different kinds of qualification, such as “If X, then Y,” “Despite X, Y,” “On the one hand, X; on the other hand, Y,” etc.
Verbal Enrichment
By Tzarina Prater
I use these exercises on revisions days or sometimes when grading final papers.
Overuse of the verb “to be”: Ask students to locate and mark every instance in which they use it. Then ask students to rewrite the paragraph most saturated with this boring verb without using it at all.
Verbal repetition: Ask students to note any paragraph in which they use the same word more than twice. Have them consult a dictionary (the Oxford English Dictionary is the only on-line source allowed) or a thesaurus and write down definitions of the term(s). Then they rewrite the paragraph using more precise language.
Focus on Transitions
By Thomas Meal
I ask students to write out all the transition sentences in a given piece of writing and analyze them. How has the author combined or subordinated parts of the argument? What types of sentence structure help make a thought both interestingly complex and clear? What is the rhetorical effect of beginning a paragraph with a question? Noticing the structure of transition sentences allows students to think about the style and the quality of argumentation throughout the paper as a whole as well.
Rather than being a tedious exercise for both instructor and student, working with grammar in your composition classroom can lead to breakthroughs not only on the level of presentation, but also at the conceptual level. In the section above we have tried to give a ways of thinking about grammar instruction that makes explicit the resources that are available to us to draw upon from the students’ knowledge as well as the instructors. We have provided exercises that can help us to work on both mechanical and structural areas in our students’ writing. But perhaps most importantly, we encourage you to think of grammar as something that is teachable and learnable—and that making the structures and the mechanics explicit will not only help our students, but may even help us in our own writing.